


Keep Up, Billy MacCrimmon

by CaptainR0cket



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Religion & Lore, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:47:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainR0cket/pseuds/CaptainR0cket
Summary: After Ultron, things take a long time to get back to normal in Cooper's Lick.   Billy MacCrimmon comes across a stranger in the woods who leads him on an adventure he never would have expected.
Relationships: Angrboða | Angerboda/Loki (Norse Religion & Lore)
Kudos: 2





	Keep Up, Billy MacCrimmon

**Author's Note:**

> Another attempt to reconcile Loki's monstrous children with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Takes place after Avengers: Age of Ultron.
> 
> All Marvel bits belong to Marvel.

Dusk softens the hard edges of day; deepens leaf-green shadows until the forest is swallowed by the gloaming. A young doe lifts her head, alerted, and flicks her tail. She scents the air, ears trembling.

Something approaches. She breaks into a riot of motion, darting left, then right, before breaking over the edge of the forest and into the underbrush.

A glow suffuses the head of the valley. Something like a woman steps into being, and kneels to touch the earth.

Ultron’s plague hadn’t been restricted to the big cities or major metropolitan areas; places as isolated as the small town of Cooper’s Lick had suffered a series of peculiar and frightening technological events. Unlike the remainder of the world, however, the strange events did not end with the destruction of Ultron. It seemed that, just as the phones started working again and the computers settled back into electronic compliance, Nature herself began to rebel.

The second minor earthquake that summer was not beyond the ordinary. Neither was the third. By the fourth the people of the town had learned to be watchful, and went about their daily routine accepting the fact that another quake might cause the ground to shake before the day’s end. Tourists, of which there were few that season, were reminded to be mindful. The scientists, when they came, did not stop to ask questions but headed into the hills in droves, and set up their computers and monitors on the lobby tables and in the guest rooms of the town’s only hotel.

The local general store was overrun, and goods like bug spray, sunscreen, and bear repellant were out of stock quickly. Billy MacCrimmon, the owner’s son, earned some spare cash that summer by ferrying teams and equipment up and down the mountain in his beat-up truck.

It had been an easy drive up that Tuesday morning. The latest team had asked to be dropped in the foothills on the western side of the mountain. Billy took the access road in and left them shouldering their packs and looking along the trail that would carry them down into the valley.

“Seventy-five percent,” Billy said to himself, as he shifted the truck into gear and sped on down the road. He’d taken to giving each team of scientists a survival rating based on their knowledge of the area and over-all common sense. The rangers were having a hell of a time keeping track of the tenderfoot outsiders who’d swarmed into the area. It was the busiest summer season Billy had ever seen. There’d been no casualties, not at that point, but Billy shared the grim outlook held by a majority of the townspeople. The rangers had tried to keep a hand on it, but it was open season on the tourists, and there were more guides, trail leaders, and know-it-alls in the town than ever, all looking to make a buck off of the scientists’ inexperience.

Billy was straightforward when he advertised himself. He drove them in, and drove them out. Nothing more, nothing less. 

The shocks on the truck were shot, and it was a bouncy ride. Billy turned down the radio and leaned back into the seat. Radio signal was sketchy up on the mountain, and the static got on his nerves. He was 22 years old and built like a linebacker. The coach at his high school had tried to push him to make something of himself, but Billy had never had the ambition. He’d as soon watch the game as play it, and that had been evident in his performance. He’d lasted a season and switched over to circuit-training in his spare time.

Billy gripped the wheel and watched the road. He hadn’t been much on the field. He wasn’t much in life, he believed, not yet. Life was something that happened to other people. They went out and found it or it magically came to them. Billy hadn’t looked for it to come either way since his dad had left them half a decade before. Life was something that happened to other people, people outside of Cooper’s Lick.

The road was narrow in places. It was an access road, lined with a twisted old barrier that tilted toward the valley below. There’d been talk that the rangers wanted to close the road, but they couldn’t do it without a warrant, and everything was still screwed up from that business with the robots. Billy and the other drivers knew the risk and they took it. The money would come in handy over the long winter, if it wasn’t spent before-hand on drugs or booze or big-screen TVs. 

Billy thought about the neat grand sitting in his bank account as he bounced down the road. A plane ticket for his mom, to go see his sister Sheila and stay in style in Denver, or finally enough to pay the plumber to come and fix up the pipes in their little apartment over the store, so that Mom could run the tap without cussing at the knocking of the pipes and take a hot shower that lasted longer than a minute. Something little, because a grand wouldn’t go far, but something that mattered, something that…

The truck bounced hard, and skittered. The wheel shook, and the vehicle jerked sideways, skittering along the road. Billy slammed on the brakes, fighting with the wheel, but it wasn’t enough to keep the truck bed from knocking into the mountain side. Billy clutched the wheel, stunned. Debris littered down on the ceiling of the cab and hood.

Earthquake.

The ground settled and Billy climbed shakily out of the truck. He hated them, hated the idea that the ground could go from being solid and still to something else. He hated that you couldn’t count on it.

He was at the base of a steep cliff. Conifers clung to the surface of the mountain, twisted roots holding tight to the ground. The road twisted along the side of the mountain, from the foothills on the western side to Cooper’s Lick on the eastern side. Billy was, by his estimate, a little under half-way home. 

The ground lurched, and Billy stumbled forward, reaching for the swinging truck door. A crack, louder than a rifle, louder than anything Billy had heard before, and then a sudden impact from the side. Billy cried out, once, and then everything went dark.

A large earthquake occurred in northern Colorado earlier this afternoon. Scientists report the fault is in a sparsely-populated area of the Rocky Mountains. Locals report…

Billy lifted his head. His face felt hot and grimy, stuck over with pine needles and dirt from the forest floor. His whole right side hurt, bad, but he pushed himself up and into a sitting position. He was at the edge of a clearing, surrounded by conifers and bracken. A fire pit, circled neatly with stones, stood ready and waiting at the center, firestarter and tinder placed on a flat rock nearby. The road, and Billy’s truck, were nowhere to be seen.

Billy felt for the GPS device in his pocket. It had been busted, the screen cracked clear across, and gave a feeble whine as he fiddled with the knobs. Useless. His cellphone had been destroyed by the impact. Whatever hit him had hit him hard.

The old people in the town said that you could find your location on the mountain by listening for the Cooper River, which wound along the base of the western side like a snake. It looped close on the western side, etching into the base of the mountain, licking at the foothills. If you found the river and followed it, you could reach Cooper’s Lick on the eastern side. Billy listened.

Silence.

No birds. No insects. No wind. There was only silence, a heavy, expectant silence, as if the forest and mountain were waiting to see what Billy would do.

He wouldn’t risk the trek along the river at night, even if he could find it. He didn’t trust the neat stone ring or the gift of the firestarter. Billy tested the movement in his right arm and leg. Sore, but manageable. He’d be black and blue in the morning. 

A noise, a little farther off. Someone was singing, in a clear, ringing voice.

Hey bear, hey bear…

Billy stood, unsteady on his feet, and limped into the trees that lined the clearing. He’d wait for his rescuer there, and then decide.

Hey bear, hey bear…

A guy, about Billy’s age, moved through the trees and into the clearing. He didn’t seem surprised to see Billy gone, only stepped across the pile of bracken and needles where Billy had laid to the fire pit. He carried a pot in one hand and a brace of fish in the other, cleaned and gutted.

The river must be close, after all.

The guy was as tall as Billy, but thin, the ropey kind of thin that Billy had seen in guys who were runners and jumpers. He didn’t look strong enough to carry Billy down off the road and through the wilderness. The picture of a make-shift travois entered Billy’s mind, along with snatches of memory of the sky through the trees. The guy looked up, pale eyes locking with Billy’s.

“You have to be hungry,” he said, and his voice was calm and strange to Billy’s ears, all rounded vowels and hard consonants. There was a lilt to the end of his words, as if he were half way toward asking a question but stopped midstream. “I don’t mind sharing with you. There’s enough here for both of us.”

Billy swallowed. He was hungry. The knife on his belt was still there; still intact and ready for something more than cutting open boxes of canned goods at his mother’s behest. There if he needed it. If he couldn’t have a gun after that business over in Bell County, then a knife was the next best thing.

“Where are we?” Billy asked in his gruffest voice. “Why didn’t you leave me by the truck?”

“The aftershocks were bad,” the guy said. “I didn’t trust the mountainside after that dead limb came down on you.” He looked down at the unlit fire, and back up at Billy, shaking his dark hair out of his eyes. Billy got the feeling that he was a little put out that it hadn’t been lit. “Good thing, too. Some loose rocks and boulders came down onto the road. It’s been blocked.”

Shit.

“You got a GPS?”

The guy blinked, and lay the fish in the pan. He squatted down before the fire.

“No.”

Tenderfoot. Billy scoffed. “Cell phone?”

“No.”

Weirdo. “You with them scientists?”

“No. I’m backpacking through.”

Any guy Billy knew wouldn’t last more than three questions without getting his hackles up. Billy suddenly wanted to see this guy mad, see him do something other than sit and politely answer Billy’s questions and bring him fish and save his life. “Where you from?”

The guy smiled, and Billy had the uncanny feeling that he’d heard him thinking. “Norway. Are you going to come help me, or do I have to make dinner myself?”

Billy swallowed and stepped into the clearing. The guy sat back, reaching for the pile of sticks and twigs that he’d lashed to his pack. Billy took the firestarter and tinder, and set to work while the guy built up the fire.

“What -” Billy started, and then spoke again. “I’m Billy.”

“My name is Orm.”

Billy tried it out. “You really aren’t from around here, huh?”

Orm shrugged. “There’s medicine in my pack if you want any. Ibuprofen, Tylenol.” He paused, and Billy looked up. “Liquor,” Orm said, and smiled.

Billy returned it tentatively. “Yeah,” Billy said. “That would be good.”

Whatever Orm’s flask held, it was good. Orm kept it coming, and the ratio of fish to alcohol soon grew smaller and smaller. He took Orm’s sleeping bag, and Orm rolled himself up in a tarp, and they lay like two burritos and talked across the glowing embers of the fire. Billy, loose-tongued and warm, told Orm about his mother and her store, about his dead-beat absentee dad and how things were always turning up broken now that he was gone. He told him about mean-eyed Brandi Kyle and her pack of cruel, ugly friends, and about that trouble over in Bell County. He even told him a little about his best friend, David, who still occupied Billy’s daily thoughts, and how he had decided to stop being his friend when Billy’s gazes, no matter how hard he tried, had begun to last a little too long.

He told Orm all of these things, and cried, and finally fell asleep under the stars.

Billy woke on the far end of dawn with a pounding headache and a nasty taste in his mouth. A soft singing and the unmistakble noise of someone attempting to be quiet had at last coaxed him into wakefulness. He squinted against the growing light and made out a water bottle with a couple of packets of Tylenol next to it. “Thanks,” he muttered, to God and to Orm and whoever was listening, and snaked out an arm toward the Tylenol. “What were we drinking?”

“Akvavit,” Orm replied, and Billy turned a bleary eye on him. “Did you like it?”

“It did its job.”

Orm laughed. “How is your shoulder? Your leg?”

“Nearly as bad as my head,” Billy said ruefully. He didn’t feel bad, miraculously, despite the night on the ground, his scrapes and bruises, and raging hangover. He felt almost good, as if he could stretch and wake up and drink some coffee, and everything would be alright.

Orm didn’t laugh again, but his eyes were bright. “You will feel better after breakfast.” Another pair of fish lay in the pan, and a kettle of coffee rattled on the fire.

“We must be close to the river,” Billy observed.

“A mile, perhaps. Maybe more. It will not take long to reach it.”

“If we follow to the east we can reach Cooper’s Lick in a few days.” Billy paused. “Man, my mom’s got to be worried. Maybe we should head back toward the road. Somebody’s got to come that way.”

Orm shook his head slowly. “There is debris as far as the eye can see. It is impassable for the time being.” He considered. “We will have to go the long way, along the river.”

Billy sighed. “At least the weather is supposed to be clear. You got anything besides fish in that pack of yours?”

“Jerky. Protein bars. Dried fruit. Whatever we need.”

“You’ve got a good supply. How long you been out?”

“A little over a week. Almost two. The foraging is good. When I cannot fish, I hunt.”

Billy nodded. “You a survivalist?”

Orm tilted his head forward, eyes curious.

Billy repeated himself slowly. “A survivalist. It means someone who can live off the land, do all the stuff you’re doing.”

Orm nodded. “Then yes, I am that.”

“Glad you ain’t a scientist,” Billy said, and got up to help with breakfast.

They walked all that day, stopping to rest when Billy’s shoulder and leg started to ache. Billy never complained, but Orm would notice when he slowed down, and out would come the packets of Tylenol and the water, and once the flask. They would sit for a while, side-by-side. Orm would ask about Cooper’s Lick, or Billy’s high school, or about the scientists who were crawling around the mountain like ants. Billy asked him about his home in Norway, of which he spoke freely, and about his family, of which he spoke little. There was Orm’s mother, and his older brother and baby sister, and a dad that seemed out of the picture, like Billy’s dad.

“Well, fuck him,” Billy said gruffly, as they passed the flask between them. “Fuck ‘em all. Someday I’m gonna find my dad. I’m gonna hold him down and make him tell me why he left, and if I don’t like it, then I’m gonna beat the shit outta him. I’m gonna make him pay.”

“Would it be enough?” Orm wondered, and his voice had taken on a soft quality. He turned and fixed Billy with a sharp eye. “Would his suffering be payment enough?”

His eyes were green, framed with black lashes, and so clear and perfect and wise that the old, seething hurt deep in Billy’s chest seemed suddenly distant. Billy swallowed once, hard, and looked away.

“We should get going,” he said, and on they went.

The day turned cooler as the evening approached, and Orm unstrapped the tent from his pack. Billy offered to fish for their supper, and took Orm’s hook and line down to the river, leaving Orm to make camp. A cheerful fire was burning when he returned, and the first of the stars had begun to peek out between the wispy clouds.

“I followed the game trail down to the river,” Billy said, and passed the gutted and scaled fish over to Orm. “I didn’t see any bear signs, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. It’s a good thing we moved off the game trail a ways.” He looked toward Orm’s tent. The little one-man tent would not provide much shelter, but it would help conserve their heat, and the fire would help. Still… “It’s gonna be tight quarters,” he noted. “Maybe we should take turns.”

Orm huffed. “It is big enough. I sleep on my side, and you can lay with your sore shoulder against the side of the tent.”

Billy rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’ll think about it.”

It was cold enough by the time dinner was finished and cleared away that Billy was glad of the narrow little tent. They lay on top of the tarp and under Orm’s sleeping bag, the bed-roll folded twice over to serve as a pillow. The ground was hard, but mostly free of rocks and roots and limbs, and Orm had piled down pine needles and bracken for padding. As he had said, there was room enough for Billy to lie on his back, with Orm stretched out beside him, arm folded under his head. There was enough room between them that Billy, who had tortured himself with the thought all evening, was not afraid of inadvertently pushing into Orm’s space. They lay next to one another and sipped at the last of the whiskey, listening to the sounds of the forest around them. Billy told Orm stories about the mountain, stories about the coyotes and foxes and bears, and, as night stretched on and it became a warm, soft thing to spy the glow of the moon from underneath the thin top of the tent, he told him about Bigfoot, the Sasquatch, and how once, as a kid, he’d surely seen one peeking out at him from behind a tree.

“What stories do they tell where you’re from?”

Orm sighed, and so close they were that Billy could hear every moment of it, the sharp inhalation with a silent hitch at the end, and then the measured exhale. “They tell many stories.”

Billy studied his face. He wasn't bad-looking. If Billy had been hard-pressed to describe him, he'd say that he had the even, good looks of someone you'd see in the movies. Not a star, but someone in the background of a movie. “Like what? What kind of stories do they tell?”

“They tell the story of Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent, who is so large that he fills all the oceans of the world. They say that Thor, the Thunderer, went fishing for whales with the giant Hymir one day and caught the World Serpent instead.”

“Thor? The Thor?”

Orm smiled. “Someone very much like him, I imagine. They say that the Thunderer fought with the serpent for many long hours, until Hymir grew afraid for his life and for his boat, and cut the line.”

“What did Thor do?”

The wind whistled around the little tent, and Orm’s eyes gleamed in the glow of the lantern. “He growled, and gnashed his teeth, and tore at his beard. He made such a noise and racket that the waves rolled and the wind blew, but Jormungandr did not care, and sunk down into the chilly depths to sleep, and await Ragnarok.”

“What’s Ragnarok?”

“The end of the world. Ragnarok will come when Jormungandr lets go of his tail. The earth will shake and the seas will boil, and he will walk the land and fight the Thunderer while his brother, the great wolf, and all his brother’s kin lay waste to the world.”

Billy considered. “It’s just a story, right? I mean, we know Thor is real - he’s with the Avengers. He fought in New York and fought against Ultron. I saw him on the news.”

Orm yawned. “It’s just a story; a story ancient people made up to tell each other around the fire.”

They lay in silence for a long while, until Orm’s breath slowed. A sudden thought occurred to Billy.

“But if Thor is real, does that mean Jormungandr is real?”

“Billy…”

“I mean, think about it. If there is a Thor, does that mean there is a Jormungandr and a Hymir, too?”

“Good night, Billy.”

“Good night.”

It was the deepest part of night when Billy awoke with an undeniable urge to relieve himself. He lay still for a while, bleary-eyed, hoping it would pass, and then wiggled out of the narrow tent, muttering apologies to Orm’s sleepy questions.

He crossed their little campsite to the ring of trees farthest from the tent, picking out the familiar features in the light of the moon as he relieved himself. He had tucked himself away and turned toward the tent when a noise came. A call in the distance, repeated again closer to the campsite. Deliberate. Purposeful.

Something twisted in Billy’s stomach and skittered along his spine. Something old and mostly forgotten, half-remembered only in dreams. He stepped toward the tent, heart pounding, and saw it.

A figure stood at the edge of the clearing, on the other side of the tent. It was covered over with dark hair, and it was tall, head and torso above Billy’s head. Its form was powerful, and it was possessed of intelligent, deep-set eyes. Fear clutched at Billy’s stomach, drawing him in to himself. He fumbled at his belt for his knife, fingers clumsy and useless.

“Orm…” he breathed, in the wheezy, choked whisper-scream of a person caught in a nightmare. “Orm!”

What erupted from the tent was Orm, but not Orm. In the light of the moon Billy could make out clothes that Orm had not been wearing when they’d fallen asleep, and a long knife he hadn’t seen during their time together. Orm spoke in a cold voice.

“End this illusion,” he ordered. “Why do you disturb my peace?”

The creature shimmered - shimmered - and stepped forward into the clearing. He was still monstrously tall, but his skin was hairless, marked over with lines and swirls, his skin a troubling gray in the chilly light of the moon. His eyes were dark, black, showing red when the moon’s light hit them as he looked between Billy and Orm. “Your lady mother requests your attendance. You have not heeded her call.”

“I am occupied, sentinel.”

The creature - the sentinel - fixed its eyes on Billy. Billy’s knife slipped from his fingers. “Shall I dispatch this diversion?”

“He is my friend.”

The creature laughed, and it was cold, like the crack of ice in the winter. “That is your business, not mine.” It turned away, and Billy saw that its back was covered over with swirls and lines and scars. “She says to tell you that she will grind your bones to make her bread if you don’t come quickly.”

With that, it was gone. Billy bent over, and threw up his dinner.

Billy blinked the water from his eyes and looked up at Orm, who leaned over him with the lantern and his canteen. It had been a dream, he’d said to Billy, again and again, and every second that passed made the memory more distant and hazy. 

“The fuck, man?” Billy exclaimed, running the back of his hand over his mouth. “The actual fuck?”

“You were dreaming, Billy. Walking in your sleep.”

“It was fucking right there!” Billy gestured toward the edge of the clearing. “You had a conversation with it! It was Bigfoot, and then it wasn’t. Your clothes were different, man. Weird. Renaissance Festival-weird.” Billy shook his head, hard, and looked again to be sure. Orm wore the same flannel shirt he’d worn when they’d gone to bed, the same slacks and boots. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Too much Akvavit.”

Billy shivered. “We barely had any.”

Orm was kind. “Whatever it was, dream or no, it is gone now.”

The more Billy sat, the more he thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. “Weird,” he said, as Orm lay a hand on his shoulder to lead him back toward the tent. Billy went willingly, legs slow to obey, stumbling over the terrain. “Weird.”

“Yes,” Orm said. “A weird dream. That’s all.”

Billy suffered strange dreams that night, full of monstrous figures and glowing red eyes. He woke late the next morning, sweaty and disoriented in the heat of the little tent. Orm was outside, puttering around the campsite quietly, without the humming and singing that had marked their other mornings together. His smile seemed a little less bright that morning, and he handed over a pack of Tylenol and his canteen without comment.

“Rough night,” Billy said, after a moment of silence.

“Yes,” Orm replied. Billy noticed that the fire had not been lit for breakfast, and it gave the morning a feeling of finality, as if something had passed, and was now over.

“Look,” Billy said, as Orm retrieved the tarp and sleeping bag from the tent. “Thanks for talking me down last night. I appreciate it.”

Orm nodded, intent on his task. Billy pocketed the protein bar and took a swig of water and went to help. 

“We should reach Cooper’s Lick today,” Billy noted, when the silence made him feel edgy. “I was thinking, you know, that you could stay with us for awhile if you wanted to. There’s room. My mom doesn’t care. It isn’t great but there’s a bed, you know, and you could take a shower.”

Orm didn’t answer.

“Look,” Billy said sharply, cussing himself for feeling hurt. “Did I do something wrong?”

Orm paused in his work and looked up, eyes sad and kind. “No, Billy,” he said, and ran a hand through his dark hair. “You didn’t do anything wrong. As much as I would like to go with you to Cooper’s Lick, I can’t.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“If you follow the river for half a day you will find a camp of scientists. They have joined the rescue effort; they will stumble across you later this morning.” He smiled slightly. “You will find them before they find you.”

Seventy-five percent, Billy thought. “What are you talking about? How do you know?”

“You will be home in time for lunch,” Orm replied. “You will have a cheeseburger and french fries, and your mother will sit across from you and cry.”

“You’re being weird, man. Knock it off.”

“Follow the river; stay as close to it as you can. It won’t be safe for you to travel deeper in the forest. Take the pack; tell them you found it in the bed of your truck.”

“You’re freaking me out. What do you mean, you can’t come with me?”

Orm didn’t answer. Billy waited, seething, watching him quietly tear down the tent. He waited until the burning pressure in his chest worked up into his throat and jaw, and then let out a string of obscenities. He cursed Orm, and cursed his monstrous dream, and Cooper’s Lick and the townspeople and his mother and truck and David and everyone and everything he could think of. He cursed until his face was red hot and his teeth ground together and angry tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes, and drew back his fist and punched the trunk of the nearest tree until his knuckles burst open and bled.

Through it all, Orm worked, and watched him, and waited, until everything was packed and ready. He held the pack toward Billy, and Billy, hating himself, shoved it back toward Orm. “Fuck you, man. I’m not taking that shit. Fuck you.”

Orm shrugged, and turned toward the forest, laying the pack against a nearby tree trunk. 

Billy shouted after him. “Don’t walk away from me, man! Don’t do that shit! Nobody walks away from me!”

And in the end, that’s exactly what Orm did.

Billy sat for a while in the clearing, nursing his anger until, bloated and pulsing, it could take no more and slithered down into some dark place deep inside him. After that he was tired, and sad, and sat listening to the wind in the trees. He ate the protein bar Orm had given him, and drank the last of the water in the canteen.

Orm was gone. There was nothing to be done about that. Billy clambered to his feet and walked home.

It was as Orm said it would be, down to the cheeseburger and fries. Billy’s mom hugged him, and cussed him, and hugged him some more. She sat across from him at a faded table in the diner and watched him eat with hollow, hungry eyes. When he’d finished she took him home and doctored him and piled him down on the couch with a worn old throw pillow and blanket, like she had when he was seven years old and had been sent home after that first fight. She sat across from him in her recliner, legs curled up underneath her, and they watched reruns together until he fell asleep.

The local channels had all gone to infomercials when Billy awoke, sore and disoriented from sleeping on the couch. He laid the blanket over his sleeping mother and made his way down the narrow hall to his bedroom. Shadows jumped out at him, heavy with the memory of bad dreams in the forest, until he switched on the little lamp by his bed to chase them away.

Something stood in the corner. 

“Shit,” Billy garbled, and turned off the light. He sat in the darkness, breathing hard, eyes wide, and then flicked the switch.

It was his mother, but not his mother. The picture was off, as if an artist had attempted the likeness. It was too symmetrical; the colors of her eyes and hair were muted, translated into being from a different palette.

The lampshade twisted from where he’d jerked back his hand, light darting here and there as it settled.

“This is a dream,” Billy breathed, and rubbed at his eyes. “I’m more fucked up than I thought I was.”

“Poor Billy, all alone now and frightened of the dark,” the not-mother whispered.

“This is a dream,” Billy repeated, drawing up onto the bed and pressing into the wall. The not-mother watched him. “The cheeseburger… Orm’s flask…”

“And where is Orm now, Billy?”

“He left me.”

“Are friends so easily discarded?”

“He just left. I… I told the rangers when I got home. They’re looking for him.” Billy paused. “Had to be suicidal, to leave all his gear behind.”

The not-mother tilted her head. “You should be looking for him. He won’t allow anyone else to find him now.”

“I can’t,” Billy stammered. “I can’t.” Fear turned to anger. “He walked away from _me_.”

The light flickered, and she was there, bent over him, eyes as black as midnight. “Away from you and into the darkness,” she hissed, dark lips pulled back to show sharp canines. Her black eyes bore into his as her features changed, growing sharper, leaner. Her mousey hair turned blood-black, twisting free from its braid into a mass of tangles that hung down around them like a curtain, and two great antlers sprouted from her head, casting shadows on the ceiling above. Her voice grated in his ear, overlaid with whispers and howls and distant cries, and Billy lay prone, terrified, nose filled with the scent of pine and smoke and black dirt. “Would you leave a friend to the darkness _once again_ , Billy MacCrimmon?”

_Lights on the wet pavement… the rear wheel of David’s sedan, spinning in the air and slowing…_

Billy woke with a shout.

“I’m crazy,” Billy muttered to himself, as he rifled through the cabinets, filling Orm’s pack with what he could find.

“This is nuts,” he said, as he pulled his uncle’s old flannel-lined jacket out of the hall closet and pinned a note to his mother on the corkboard by the door. He’d known plenty of guys and none of them had ever sat and listened to him like Orm had; had never asked him questions about his life and sat and really listened to the answers. Cooper’s Lick bred ‘em strong and angry and quick to leave. Anything like kindness was driven out by desperation and bitterness early on, and Orm - whoever he was - whatever he was - was kind. Billy knew that, if he let Orm walk away, he’d be looking for that kindness for the rest of his life. That dream - whatever it had been - had made it clear.

“You’re a damn fool, Billy MacCrimmon,” he said to himself as he left Cooper’s Lick, and headed back into the wilderness.

It was easy enough to find the clearing where they had parted, and Billy set forth certain that he was following in the direction Orm had gone. It was late afternoon before Billy realized that he was, in fact, lost. The compass in Orm’s pack was broken, or defective, the dial spinning around and around as he held it in his hand. His calls after Orm had gone unanswered, and there was after the first few miles no sign that he’d come that way at all.

 _Head back the way you came,_ a voice in his head whispered.

Billy shut the voice up with a picture of Orm, clear-eyed and smiling. Orm would be hot, too. Orm would be tired and thirsty.

A noise came from Billy’s left, and the picture of Orm was replaced with the black-eyed woman he’d dreamt about the night before. Billy felt queasy.

“Hey, bear,” he muttered, swallowing hard. His fingers fumbled at the pack, searching for the bear spray. “Hey, bear. Go on, bear. Get.”

Billy took a step forward, eyes casting toward the left. Something moved between the trees, mirroring his movement, shaggy and cinnamon-colored. “Hey, bear,” he called, stronger now. “Hey.”

Another step, another. “Hey, bear.”

A riot of motion, and Billy was lost in a hell of noise and fear and hot, stinking breath. Billy screamed, fighting the beast off in a panic, blocking the snapping of its jaws with his forearms. 

A force hit Billy and the beast both, rolling them over one another. Billy scrambled back, breathing hard. Orm stood between him and the beast, brandishing a stick - a limb - as large as Billy’s leg. He lifted it again as the beast clambered to its feet.

It was a wolf, but bigger than any wolf Billy had ever seen or heard of. Its shaggy fur was tangled through with twigs and moss, and it stood watching them both, yellow eyes bright and curious.

Orm’s voice was hard. “Billy,” he said, and still he held the limb, as if it were nothing more than a baseball bat. “Don’t move.”

The wolf dropped its head, eyes watching Orm, rolling to watch Billy, the whites showing. A moment, then another, and it turned and padded silently away between the trees.

The fight seemed to go out of Orm. He sighed, and let the limb drop.

“Jesus,” Billy breathed, pushing himself up unsteadily. “Orm…”

“Are you hurt?” Orm caught Billy’s shoulder, turning him this way and that, looking him over. “Where are you hurt?”

Billy checked himself over. His shirt was torn, and a long scratch marked one arm, but he was whole. He showed Orm the scratch. “I’m… it didn’t hurt me. I thought it was going to kill me. If you hadn’t come… how did you…”

“Why did you come, Billy?”

“You left your pack,” Billy said simply.

Orm’s mouth twitched, and let his hand drop from where it rested on Billy’s shoulder. “I don’t need the pack. I left it for you.”

“I call bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“Bullshit. It means…”

“I know what it means, Billy.”

Billy dug in. “Then you know that you’re full of it,” he retorted, and fixed Orm with a sharp eye. “You aren’t even hungry, are you? It’s like you just left. No dirt on you, no signs of roughing it in the woods.” He looked back at the woods, and at the limb that Orm had carried. “Fighting off wolves and carrying huge fuckin’ dead limbs. Who _are_ you?”

“Go home, Billy.”

“No.”

“If you go home now then you’ll remember me like this,” Orm said, eyes desperate. “You’ll remember that we met in the woods, and traveled together, and talked. That’s as it should be, Billy. That’s what you should remember.”

“I’ll remember more than that.” Orm pulled back, and Billy caught hold of his arm, arresting his progress. “I’ll remember that you listen to me, and hear what I’m saying. I’ll remember that when you look at me it isn’t like you see all the bullshit mistakes I ever made, but like you really see me. Do you even know what that’s like? It fuckin’ kills me, man. It fuckin’ breaks my heart.” His hands clutched rough, and Orm bore it without complaint, dark eyes never leaving Billy’s. “You saved my life,” Billy said roughly, and, because the alternative was too frightening, pushed Orm away. “You owe me. You just owe me.”

Orm looked lost. “If you knew what I am…”

“Then show me,” Billy interrupted.

Orm swallowed. “Billy…”

“I’m not afraid,” Billy said. “The things I’ve seen on the news… those aliens in New York… that Ultron shit… I’m not afraid.”

“You should be,” Orm whispered, and then he was changing into something - _someone_ \- that was no longer Orm, but taller and paler and marked over with little raised lines that formed patterns and shapes all over his gray skin. He held that form for a moment, blinking at Billy with eyes so red that they appeared to be black, before changing again, growing and lengthening until what was formerly Orm was now a snake, huge and black, his nose coming up to Billy’s chest. His long body stretched through the forest, winding around some tree trunks, pushing others aside. The whole forest shook and Billy, reflexively, reached out and placed his hand on the snake’s nose to steady himself.

_Billy._

Orm’s scales were smooth, tight and cool under Billy’s palm. His head was as tall as Billy, and he looked at Billy from eyes as big around as serving platters. A slender line of black dissected the red of his eye.

_Are you afraid?_

Orm’s voice seemed distant, an echo of a thought. “No,” Billy replied, and reached out to run his hand along the ridge over one eye. “Are you going to hurt me?”

 _Never,_ the snake said, and Billy _knew_ it to be true. _Step back, Billy._

Billy complied, and the snake folded in on himself until Orm stood before him once again.

“There,” Orm said. “You see.”

A thought kindled to life in Billy’s mind. “The snake,” he said, and it felt like his heart would pound on until it burst, and that his lungs were incapable of bringing in enough air. He stumbled, knees suddenly weak, and sank to the ground. “The snake in the story…”

Orm held out his arms, and let them fall again. “One and the same.”

“Fuck,” Billy MacCrimmon said, and fainted.

Peace. I have you.

Billy opened his eyes. Orm’s grey face looked down into his face, strong arms supporting his head and shoulders. The trees were gone; nothing was above them but sky.

“I moved you,” Orm said simply. “It was not safe to stay where we were.”

“How…”

“Creating doorways is my specialty.” His eyes were bright despite the solemn expression on his narrow face, and Billy wondered how eyes so different from his own could be so readable. A lock of dark hair fell forward over his forehead, curling down over the lined skin like a snake.

_Snake._

Orm’s grasp on him loosened, and Billy pushed himself up. “Who are you?” he asked. “Tell it to me straight.”

Orm gestured at himself. “This form you see is my own. I come from a place called Jotunheim.”

“A different planet?”

“Something like that.” He held out his hand, and Billy could see it was covered over with raised lines. There were two long, purple scars on the back of his wrist. “Say this is Earth,” he said, and lay his hand flat, palm facing the ground. He brought the second hand up, and lay it partly under the other, so that half of one hand covered half of the other hand. “This is Jotunheim.”

“Earth is round,” Billy retorted. “It’s a planet. Everyone knows that.”

Orm smiled. “Yes, and no.”

“Does everyone from Jotunheim… you know…” Billy held out his hand and moved it in a serpentine motion.

“No,” Orm replied. “My mother’s people are able to change form, but are restricted to laws of the energy they draw. I am different.”

“I suppose I’m not surprised you can teleport, too.” Billy checked himself over for signs of cosmic dust or moon rock or weird interstellar gravel. “Where are we now?”

Orm shrugged. “Somewhere on Midgard. Far enough away from Cooper’s Lick that my moving out of this realm will not cause seismic disturbance.”

“The earthquake,” Billy said. “The earthquake on the mountain. Was that you?”

Orm looked away. “I was curious. It was not my intention to hurt you.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“I was traveling between the worlds and came too close,” Orm said simply, as if he were mentioning a wrong turn he’d made. His eyes sought Billy’s and he smiled a little sheepishly. “It’s tricky.”

“It was an accident. It happens.” The absurdity of it, that a giant mythological creature should come to Cooper’s Lick and apologize for causing a few earthquakes, struck Billy and he laughed. “Don’t worry about it, man. As long as the mountain doesn’t fall down, we’ll be fine.”

“You are generous. I doubt others would be so.”

“Well, screw ‘em. They ain’t here.” They sat side by side, watching the sun hang dip lower in the sky. Orm had brought them to a cliff top, a high, rocky plateau that looked out over the surrounding landscape.

 _Good defense,_ Billy thought.

“My world began to die a long time ago,” Orm said softly, “a casualty of greed and ambition. My mother believes that a doorway can be opened between my world and this world, and that the people of Jotunheim can make their way to this world.”

“Your mother… doesn’t happen to visit people in their dreams and grow antlers, does she?”

Orm looked stricken, and he reached up and took Billy’s face between his hands. “Did she touch you? Hurt you?”

“No, nothing like that. She only… she said I needed to find you.” Orm’s hands were dry and warm; the palms and fingers rougher than Billy had expected they would be. “She was right. I couldn’t… if you’re in trouble, then I want to help.”

“She will never let go,” Orm said softly. “How terrible a love.” He studied Billy. “It will not be easy. This is not the path for our people.”

“You’re running away.” _Lights on the wet pavement… the sickening beat of a dying turn signal illuminating the sign that marked the Bell County line…_

Orm shook his head. “I am running into danger.” He studied Billy, strange eyes wide and thoughtful. “Knowing that, will you come?”

“Yes,” Billy said. “Oh yes.”

They walked for hours, stopping to rest when Billy grew weary. Orm no longer seemed possessed of anything approaching weariness; he would turn, surprised, when Billy stumbled or when his breath came short after a long march uphill. He was solicitous in those moments, and generous with quiet praise, the kind that would have rankled Billy _before_ but now seemed to feed his very soul. They sat together, overlooking vistas Billy had never seen. The mountain in whose shadow he’d spent his entire life now seemed another mountain entirely, just as every glimpse at his newfound friend afforded features that had altered, only hinting at the familiar.

They stopped at last at the head of a valley. Billy had long since given up any hope of understanding where they were in relation to Cooper’s Lick, and he looked out over that new valley with no preconceived notions. It had been that way for the last leg of their journey; the noise of his life in Cooper’s Lick and the anger he carried with him had ceased to fill his mind. The constant inner dialogue of guilt and frustration had turned to a simple acceptance of what was as he had walked with Orm. _Here is a tree_ and _here is the wind_ , he had thought. _Here is my breath and here the sunshine on my back._ Orm had watched Billy, and smiled his own quiet smile.

“Leave this here,” he directed, reaching out and unbuckling the waist strap of the pack Billy wore. Billy let his hands rest on Orm’s sturdy wrists as he unbuckled the strap, and dropped them as Orm reached up to push the pack off his shoulders.

“We won’t need it?”

Orm shook his head. “It will better serve as a beacon. If we are separated - if something happens - you’ll find yourself here again. Look.”

Billy turned to look the way they’d come. The forest behind them seemed to melt away, to transform into the foothills that overlooked Cooper’s Lick. Billy’s heart thudded in his chest. “That’s home. That’s Cooper’s Lick.” He turned to look at Orm. “How are you doing that?”

“Creating doorways is my gift,” Orm said. “Through there lies human civilization.” He turned to look out over the valley. “There is very little akin to human civilization where we are going.” His eyes were bright; his face was solemn as he regarded Billy. “Are you afraid?”

“Not if we’re together,” Billy said staunchly and, because he was committed to being brave, and because he wanted to, he leaned in and pressed his cheek to Orm’s patterned cheek. He had seen an old dog do that once, press its face up against its master’s sleeve, and remain, breathing in and out, as if existence was tied to that one moment in time. _Here is my hand on his shoulder,_ Billy thought, when he could think again, when the rough texture of Orm’s cheek and his breath against Billy’s skin no longer short-circuited his brain. _I am holding him, and the world is not ending. He smells like pine and smoke. I never want to let go._

Orm looped an arm around his shoulders. “Billy,” he said, and his voice was a living thing between them, warm and dark, as he leaned in and pressed his forehead to Billy’s.

It was intimate to be that close, more intimate than before. Billy struggled to breathe for a moment, eyes darting over Orm’s shuttered eyes and peaceful features, until Orm’s warm, heavy hand curled around the back of Billy’s neck and squeezed. Billy’s eyes fluttered shut and all of the tension of the moment left him in a great, shuddering sigh, and he stood, content, until Orm drew away.

“Brave Billy,” Orm said, smiling. He held out his hand and Billy took it, nerves firing up his arm and setting his brain alight. “Keep up.”

In a moment, they were gone.

**Author's Note:**

> My playlist for this work-in-progress:
> 
> Home by Phillip Phillips
> 
> Raised by Wolves by U2
> 
> Forward Motion by Daya
> 
> All I Want Is You by Barry Louis Polisar


End file.
